Frits Barend, together with Henk van Dorp, was the determining factor of the late evening on RTL 4 for years. What does he think of the bickering between the channel’s current late-night stars?
For years, Frits Barend created the authoritative talk show Barend & Van Dorp on RTL 4 together with Henk van Dorp. It was a golden time for the channel, when late evenings were still about a permanent duo and not about a musical chairs game of egos. What does he think of the bickering between Renze Klamer, Beau van Erven Dorens and Humberto Tan?
What does Frits think?
Beau and Humberto, together with their failed talk show RTL Tonight, have to make way for Renze, who left the sinking ship at an early stage. And instead of targeting the RTL top that came up with this shaky format in the first place, they seem to take out their frustration mainly on those who simply figured it out earlier.
Frits also has an opinion about it. “You can say: how cowardly that Renze is leaving, but if you feel that it is not for you, you should not stick around. Humberto and Beau are clearly not happy about that. Mud-slinging is part of it these days. You can wonder whether there might be a little jealousy involved,” he says in New Revu.
Risk of the trade
Jealousy is the reason why Beau and Humberto act so unreasonably, Frits thinks. “Renze can continue, he still has perspective, while Humberto and Beau are left empty-handed. That is the risk of this profession. I don’t think they will get a new talk show anytime soon, they have had gigantic opportunities.”
He continues: “I am very fond of Humberto, I think he is a very pleasant man. I also thought he would make it. When I quit RTL, I mentioned his name to the channel, saying: let him do it, he can do this.”
Holiday deals
Humberto also had many years of success with RTL Late Night, but those days are long behind us. “And Beau… Well, he can promote fantastic holiday deals. How he flies past windows and everything…” he sneers, pointing to the many commercials in which the talk show host appears.
Frits concludes: “I don’t know what’s going on internally, but from what you see, it’s difficult to say that Renze is the big culprit. The program just didn’t run, it wasn’t convincing. I haven’t watched it for a while, that says enough.”